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Christie press conference: Two hours in two minutes

The weekend could provide the first sign of whether Christie will be able to maintain his superstar status among the rich Republicans who have backed him in the past and figure to play an outsize role in deciding the party’s 2016 nominee. It won’t be easy.

“He has got a big problem, because perception is everything — perception is reality,” said Stan Hubbard, a billionaire Minnesota media mogul who is flying in for Sunday’s event. “I’m sure he’s an honorable, decent guy, but I wonder how the hell did he let this happen. I mean, who did he hire? What kind of idiot? It’s just ridiculous. How stupid.”

The timing is critical for Christie. Building a big-money network is a prerequisite to mounting a viable presidential campaign, and every serious 2016 candidate is expected to have the backing of one or more super PACs, which can accept unlimited checks to run shadow campaigns boosting their preferred candidate and ripping rivals.

Christie had been expected to be among the chief beneficiaries of this dynamic. He has assiduously courted some of the GOP’s top donors, among whom his reputation as a decisive, no-nonsense executive had major appeal. A coalition of them — including Home Depot co-founder Ken Langone, David Koch and Hubbard — had urged him to run for president in 2012, and Langone was expected to eventually set up a super PAC as a repository for Christie 2016 cash.

Now, several fundraisers and donors said, the smart money is sitting back and waiting to see how the bridge scandal unfolds, potentially giving an advantage to prospective 2016 rivals in their efforts to win megadonor support.

One GOP finance operative who has met with Christie acknowledged that it’s been a major topic of conversation among top donors, with even Christie boosters worried about its impact. Christie’s marathon apology press conference last week did little to quiet such concerns, according to the operative, who said several donors noted Christie’s references to his own embarrassment. “I had a donor say well ‘Who gives a sh— about you? What about all the people who are stuck on the bridge?” the operative said.

The Sunday dinner is at Langone’s house in North Palm Beach, The Washington Post first reported, and was billed to donors as a chance to rub elbows with Christie, not a fundraiser. It is distinct from Saturday fundraisers Christie is slated to headline for Florida Gov. Rick Scott and the Republican Governors Association in Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach and Orlando.

The entire Florida swing was planned well before Christie’s political trajectory was imperiled by revelations that his staff was involved in lane closures on the George Washington Bridge that caused massive traffic jams, and were allegedly politically motivated. The resulting controversy has dominated the headlines in New York and New Jersey, as well as the national political discussion. Christie has strenuously denied any knowledge of the closures and has parted ways with top aides linked to the controversy.

Langone says more than 500 people are seeking to attend Sunday, up from 200 who were initially expected. And he believes Christie has weathered the controversy well.

“The thing that impresses me is he made damn certain the world knows he doesn’t want anyone around him who [engages in] that kind of behavior,” Langone said in an interview with POLITICO.

Hubbard said he sees Sunday’s dinner as a chance to get a better sense of how Christie intends to handle the scandal, while other donors and operatives cast the RGA fundraisers — Christie is the RGA chairman — as an opportunity for the governor to buttress his standing with top donors.

“It’s a good test of the depth and enthusiasm of support, and I think it’ll be very positive,” said Fred Malek, a top Republican bundler who heads the RGA’s major donor program.

Malek said donors he’s spoken with feel Christie dealt with the controversy “decisively and responsibly” and that “there is a piling on going on right now by the other side.” He added, “And they feel more than ever that he deserves our support. It is a rallying to his defense.”

If Christie is unsuccessful, those megadonors may turn their attention elsewhere.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who this week expressed support for Christie, is seen as a potential beneficiary, having already made inroads with several major donors who participated in a Langone-organized meeting in 2011 urging Christie to enter the 2012 race. “I am a big supporter of Gov. Walker,” Hubbard said. “I think he is terrific. I think he says the right thing, does the right thing. So I have not decided to back anybody, but right now I’d lean towards Walker.”

Dallas real estate mogul Harlan Crow, who is among a group of hotly courted and uncommitted Texas megadonors, a few months ago hosted Christie and his wife at a private donor luncheon in Dallas. “They were both charming and I was favorably impressed,” said Crow, who donated $2.3 million to super PACs supporting Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign.

Crow said he takes Christie at his word that he had no knowledge of the lane closures. “Unless new information disproves that, then I see no substantial reason to doubt his leadership,” he said. “Doubtless he is learning a lot from this.”

Christie already had some work to do getting in the good graces of some Romney supporters who still harbor a grudge over what they saw as Christie’s undercutting Romney during the 2012 campaign, most notably bolstering President Barack Obama’s bipartisan bona fides in the days after Superstorm Sandy.

The governor has worked to make inroads with Romney’s formidable finance operation, meeting last year with Romney finance director Spencer Zwick, who said this week that Christie “absolutely has a shot” at convincing Romney backers.

“Gov. Christie has already won the support of many major financial backers from the Romney campaign,” Zwick told POLITICO.

Everything, of course, is predicated on whether the ongoing investigations into the bridge controversy yield anything that definitively points to Christie.

“If it links back to him, he is dead meat,” Hubbard said. “If it doesn’t, we’ve got a couple years yet and in politics, that’s a lifetime, and a lot of other things can happen between now and then.”